Many families go through life living in the same area. However, many others move their belongings, families and lives wherever life tends to take them. Whether that be moving down the road to a newly purchased house, moving to another suburb simply because it will be closer to get to work or the new school that your children will be attending, or even moving interstate starting a whole new chapter on life. Whatever the case may be, you need to understand that moving locally down the road is very different logistically, to moving your belongings and family interstate.

When moving locally, you have the advantage of utilising a group of friends, a few cars, vans or even a hired truck, packing your belongings and driving back and forth between destinations to load and unload your belongings and you could even get that done over a few weekends without the need to really take any time off work.

However, when you are moving interstate it opens up another whole can of variables to consider such as the distance of the move, how you will be transporting bulky items such as furniture and vehicles, cancelling current or transferring service providers for electricity, gas, water, phone and internet to your new address. If you have children, most likely you will also be required to scout out the best schools in the new state that you will be sending your kids to and doing this from another state is no easy feat.

It doesn’t stop there though, you will also have to find a new General Practitioner for future medical appointments as well.  Then there is planning the move and the different interstate options you could take, whether you choose to hire a moving truck and do it yourself or choose an Interstate Removal Company to do it all for you.

However you plan to tackle your interstate move, most likely you will be considering one of the following options. So lets discuss them below:

Option 1 – Hire a Moving Truck

While hiring a Moving Truck and gathering some friends to help is the least costly of all the options. It will however eat up most of your time since you will need to drive all of your belongings interstate. Remember driving interstate isn’t as easy as driving 3 hours down the road so you will need to be extra careful on the road and if you don’t deal well with long distance driving that well then this option is not recommended. Driving long distances without enough rest can be dangerous especially driving while you are fatigued with a truck you have barely driven twice is not a good idea.

Professional Interstate Removal companies cover contents while under their care and have specific ways they pack and secure items in trucks so that they do not move mid way through the journey and for someone who doesn’t have the knowledge nor experience in doing so will most likely end up with damaged items when you reach the destination.  So while, this may be the budget option it could end up costing you a lot more money, time and heartache in the end.

Option 2 – Priority Loading

Priority Loading means the Interstate Removal Company who you choose to help you with your interstate move will give you exclusive use of their truck. Which means you are the sole client they will be servicing and all the contents loaded onto the truck will be yours and no one else. That also means they are going to one destination only too. This is a more direct route for all of your contents to be delivered in one go as the Interstate Removalist will be loading it onto the truck at the pickup destination, driving it to the destination and unloading it at the other end, then driving back empty. This is the quickest way however being the quickest it will come at a cost and that cost is normally expensive, as you will be paying for the truck to travel in both directions.

Option 3 – Backloading or Non-Priority Load

Backloading simply means utilising an empty truck on a return leg when it is available. Usually this happens when a truck finishes a job and is returning to the state where they originated from and therefore chooses to utilize the empty space in the truck rather than travelling back with an empty load all while offering this at a discounted price. So they will give you the option to backload where you will have to share the space with multiple jobs on the same truck coming back from the same return journey. This is a more affordable alternative to priority loading however the pickup and delivery times of your contents will not be given to you specific as the flexibility shifts to when it is convenient for the drivers to pickup and deliver your items on the return leg. That is where the discount is justifiable. If you are flexible this is a good option.

Option 4 – Use of Shipping Containers by Sea, Rail or Truck

The shipping container is usually delivered to your address by a truck where you can pack the container at your own pace. Once done, it will be picked up by a truck and delivered to either a rail network or freight dock to get shipped to the state it needs to go and then again get picked up by a truck and delivered to you where you can again unpack at your own pace. This may again be a cheaper alternative but remember shipping containers are not made to ship household items by rather pallets of freight. They are hard to transport around due to their bulky nature and unless you have a large enough area in your front yard for the container to be left outside for long periods without any impacting any of the council’s strict rules and regulations then this is probably a viable option. Also if you have a few items over the size of what a container can hold you will have to order another container, which will then prove costly.

Option 5 – Mobile Storage Module Units

These Mobile Storage Module Units are typically 2.3m Long x 1.5m Wide and 2m High. They are delivered to your address where you can pack them yourself or use professional packers to do it for you. They are then taken to the destination address when it can then be unloaded. These storage units are big enough to pack by room and you usually pay per module. Interstate removal companies also have a warehouse and storage facility where they are able to store your modules short-term and deliver it to you when you need them unlike self storage where your contents are shipped to a warehouse and stored in a room where you will have to collect later on by yourself. Usually a practical solution and quite cost effective.

With the 5 options discussed above, each have their pros and cons and only you can decide which option is most suitable to you.  If you choose to go with Option 2 and onwards you will most definitely need to get an exact quote.  Getting an exact quote means there are no variables for the price to move later on. But also means that you will need an exact list of items to move so that the Interstate Removal Companies that you inquire with will be able to estimate how many truck loads you need, containers, or even storage modules will be required and whether you will do the packing yourself or simply leave it all up to the professionals. Either way we all know that gathering this exact list of items is painstaking and having to call and explain it to several Interstate Removalists to get a quote can be just as tiring.

So to eliminate another factor of stress you could try and use companies like findamover.com.au where you are able to list your job and the items you need moved from and to and the site will connect you with Interstate Removalists who are more than happy to give you a quote for your job.

Moving interstate also means further distances travelled and more handling of your items, so make sure you end up using some quality packing material to prevent any damages. Most of the time if you leave this up to the professionals they will do a superb job but if you opt to do the packing yourself a good place to look for quality packing material would be storageking.com.au.

With these options to bear in mind, I’m sure you’ll find one of the options that best suits you and will help making moving your family and life to a whole new state less stressful.